Rajoy, Sáenz de Santamaría, Colau and Torrent all to testify next week at the trial

The Supreme Court has published the list of witnesses that will testify in the Catalan Independence Trial from Tuesday, 26 February, onwards.

The presiding magistrate, Manuel Marchena, aims to have finished hearing the testimonies of the accused by the end of this week. To reach this goal, he will authorise Friday if needed. As Pedro Sánchez called for general elections last week, the Supreme Court wants to speed things up so as to not coincide with the election campaign.

These are some of the testimonies that have been accepted by the Supreme Court. However, these aren't all of the ones put forward by the defence. Those rejected by the magistrates include king Felipe VI, ex-president Carles Puigdemont, and Marta Rovira, the ERC general Secretary.

Others that didn't make it onto the list are the UN special rapporteurs David Kaye, Alfred de Zayas, and Michel Forst. The historian Paul Preston, The Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams and linguist Noam Chomsky, distinguished personalities summoned by the defence, Jordi Cuixart, are also among those rejected.